Sunday 31 July 2016

War

"War"

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes -
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race -
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained -
Now everywhere is war - war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed -
Well, everywhere is war -
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south -
War - war -
Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight - we find it necessary -
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil -
Good over evil, yeah! [fadeout]

Molly Scott-Cato on Hinkley Point

Molly has slammed as an economic disaster the decision by EDF to press ahead with new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. It comes on the day another board member of the company resigned, describing the project as “very risky” and saying he expected EDF to move towards renewables instead of pursuing more nuclear power. 
Just days ago the National Audit Office proclaimed renewables as a cheaper option and the now disbanded Department for Energy and Climate Change estimated the cost of keeping its promise to EDF has increased to £37bn over the life of the project
It was also revealed last weekend that French finance authorities raided the offices of EDF due to suspicions over whether the company was reporting information accurately to shareholders. Molly, a long term critic of Hinkley, said:
“This decision is a massive blow to businesses and consumers who will now be forced to pay for some of the most expensively generated electricity on earth. It squanders the huge potential we have for renewable energy resources in the South West. This is the sector where our efforts should be channelled; renewables can come on stream quicker, more cheaply and create thousands more jobs than nuclear ever can. Given EDF’s record to date, both here in the UK and in building other similar nuclear reactors elsewhere, we can expect further delays, even higher costs and blackouts to follow.”
“This project is totally discredited. EDF is not trusted either by its shareholders or many of its employees, both of whom have expressed grave doubts about Hinkley. The only thing that keeps this white elephant stumbling along is a blind ideological obsession with nuclear power from the Tories and a determination to show that Brexit Britain is still open for business. This is one business we could all do without.”

Thursday 28 July 2016

Ashdown and Steven Kinnock...a couple of swells........

Some interesting observations from Gwynoro Jones on Radio Wales. Gwynoro speculated on the state of the Labour Party and pointed out that Jeremy Corbyn had been democratically elected as Leader of the party. He also speculated on the "authenticity" of Owen Smith's conversion to Socialism. Gwynoro certainly knows his stuff. He understands how the old style monolithic Welsh Labour operates One last thing at the Remain rally in Swansea during the Referendum on the EU a certain Steven Kinnock was sitting next to Paddy Ashdown and Ashdown has established an organisation to promote "moderate candidates" who are committed to the market economy. Wouldn't Steven Kinnock make an excellent “leader” of a breakaway Parliamentary Labour Party? There wiuld be big daddy Kinnock to advise him and the tribe of Blair You might think that but I could not possibly comment........am off for a few days see you all next week

Steven Kinnock, George Orwell, private education and Atlantic College



I have just read about Steven Kinnock's decision to privately educate his daughter at Atlantic College. The fees according to the blogger Jac “o “the North are close on £30,00 per year. My first thought was about what that sort of money could do if that same amount was spent on each school child per year throughout Neath and Port Talbot. eh Steven? Kinnock represents a constituency massively in need of money being spent on building first class education. I remember watching a hustings at the Aberavon Beach Hotel during the general election as Mr Kinnock defended Trident and claimed that he had the links for the large international companies that would come and create wok in Neath and Port Talbot. The cost of Trident would enable all of the school students in the area to have an education that would be provided to the standards of Atlantic College. I believe that all students should have the best possible education and that it should not be restricted to the children of the ministerial and the officials of international business class .


In 1940 George Orwell argued “that there are certain immediate steps that we could take towards a democratic educational system. We could start by abolishing the autonomy of the public schools and the older universities and flooding them with State-aided pupils chosen simply on grounds of ability. At present, public-school education is partly a training in class prejudice and partly a sort of tax that the middle classes pay to the upper class in return for the right to enter certain professions. It is true that that state of affairs is altering. The middle classes have begun to rebel against the expensiveness of education, and the war will bankrupt the majority of the public schools if it continues for another year or two. The evacuation is also producing certain minor changes. But there is a danger that some of the older schools, which will be able to weather the financial storm longest, will survive in some form or another as festering centres of snobbery. As for the 10,000 ‘private’ schools that England possesses, the vast majority of them deserve nothing except suppression. They are simply commercial undertakings, and in many cases their educational level is actually lower than that of the elementary schools. They merely exist because of a widespread idea that there is something disgraceful in being educated by the public authorities. The State could quell this idea by declaring itself responsible for all education, even if at the start this were no more than a gesture. We need gestures as well as actions. It is all too obvious that our talk of ‘defending democracy’ is nonsense while it is a mere accident of birth that decides whether a gifted child shall or shall not get the education it deserves. For sixty years the Labour Party has turned a blind eye to private education ..but now the chickens are coming home to roost.



Gorge Orwell has been dead sixty years and private education thrives. Those who live in the international world of big business and the rulers of the polical economy are replicated, reproduced and sent out with the world view of the Kinniocks and the Princes and Princesses of the blairite Cabal . And before you accuse me of hypocrisy I was educated at an English prep school its probably stunted me in many ways psychologically and given me strange eccentric habits but its left me with an abiding dislike of the elite and of English snobbery. My education did not thrive till I went to Dynevor Senior Comprehensive in Swansea and I gew wings, confidence and political understanding. There is reselction coming Steven Kinnock its caused by boundary chamges..and yet there are very few corbynistas in Wales..lets hope there is a mighty judgement is coming but I might be wrong...........

Revelation 6:8 King James Version (KJV) And I saw Donald Trump on a pale horse.....



And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Trump , and Teresa May followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the UK to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the BrexuteersAll right wing governments drift to war when their economic policy is in tatters. The Generals rubbish the peacemakers, the military industrial complex sharpens up its maw to gobble more and more young people, it promises employment and skills and instead it excretes weapons, it promotes the boogie man and keeps us all afraid. It does not tell you that our allies in the shape of Saudi Arabia, execute with public beheadings over 600 individuals a year. Isis is an apocalyptic organisation it believes in a last day of judgement when in a great battle the infidel will perish. What a gift it presents for the arms industry, what a gift for the failing cult of austerity, what a gift for right.No one taks about the arms trade, the fact that the invasion of Iraq laid the ground conditions that enabled Isis to appear. They dont tell you that after the second Gulf War the provinces of Iraq experienced centralisation, devolved powers were removed and concentrated on Bagdad, that the Sunni were given no representation.

No one tells you that during the Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe religious toleration we saw similar events that are now happening in Iraq and Syria and on the streets of Paris and Brussels. As long as yo think there is only one true faith, that there is only one right answer then ultimately this leads to the slaughter of Islamic peoples by the medieval Crusader and to the adherents of Isis in Paris and in Brussels. To the true believer the person who thinks differently is essentially a spiritual serial killers murdering the truth. If you are Queen Mary in the 16th century burning the early Protestants, or Calvin in Geneva acting the other way round you create Theocratic Societies where your truth is the only truth. European tolerance did not come from negotiation..it came because nether side could win. Islam and the Arab Spring have begun an Islamic Reformation. Corbyn, the Green party , Russel Brand have begun a challenge to the Neo-liberalism religion of Austerity. We are at a major turning point in perceptions both across Europe and across the Middle East
sis does not tell you or its followers the true meaning of Jihad, that the great Medieval Islamic warrior Saladin was a Kurd and allowed Christians to worship in the Holy Land. The apocalyptic believers within Isis have a clear vision a simple apocalypse. The-refugee crisis allows us in the West to fear the other, the stranger. The Priests of Neo-liberalism and the religion of austerity promote a cult of fear, of distrust and of loathing. We are being manipulated by both sides and no one except a few see it. i

Agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) and the true meaning of Jihad for dummies




I grow fed up with people raving about the meaning of the term jihad. They are usually those who call for moderate Muslims to condem terrorism but they never call for the Christian Church to candem the klu Klux Klan or Anders brevik. They frequently deny that any act commuted by terrorists in the name of Christianity is in fact terrorism but see every violent act by someone who is a Muslim as a terrorist act. Some months ago I saw a tweet from someone called "Christian" codeming a footballer who first name was Islam. Chtistian said " Why do they have to bring religion into everything?” So please think of the word Jihad in the way you would use the ancient Greek word “agon” It might help

Agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) is an ancient Greek term for a struggle or contest. 
Agon comes from the Greek word agōn, which is translated with a number of meanings, among them "contest," "competition at games," and "gathering." In ancient Greece, agons (also spelled "agones") were contests held during public festivals. The contests-among them the ancient Olympics that our modern Olympics is modelled on-involved everything from athletics to chariot and horse racing to music and literature. "Agon" in the realm of literature refers to the dramatic conflict between the main characters in a Greek play, or more broadly, between the chief characters in any literary work. The word is also occasionally used to refer to conflict generally, as in our first example sentence.
Jihad is an Arabic word from the root Jee Ha Da. It literally means to
struggle or strive. Jihad is struggling or striving in the way or sake of
Allah. Jihad takes a very important status in the doctrine of Islam and is
one of the basic duties for every Muslim.
Though, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the term Holy War. Such
a term, or its equivalent doesn’t exist in the Islamic doctrine. The Christian
Crusaders in the mid-ages invented this ideology of Holy War.
There is nothing “Holy” about wars. Wars only involve killings and disasters!
Jihad has many forms,
Jihad of the heart/soul (jihad bin nafs/qalb)
Jihad by the tongue (jihad bil lisan)
Jihad by the pen/knowledge (jihad bil qalam/ilm)
Jihad by the hand (jihad bil yad)
Jihad by the sword (jihad bis saif)
There is nothing “Holy” about wars. Wars only involve killings and disasters!
Jihad has many forms,
Jihad of the heart/soul (jihad bin nafs/qalb)
Jihad by the tongue (jihad bil lisan)
Jihad by the pen/knowledge (jihad bil qalam/ilm)
Jihad by the hand (jihad bil yad)
Jihad by the sword (jihad bis saif)
So please think again and enrich your mind and outlook. Think of the crusades and Thomas Aquinas on Holy War.Just war theory (jus bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics studied by theologians, ethicists, policy makers, and military leaders. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. The criteria are split into two groups: ‘the right to go to war’ (jus ad bellum) and ‘right conduct in war’ (jus in bello). The first concerns the morality of going to war and the second with moral conduct within war.[1] Recently there have been calls for the inclusion of a third category of just war theory—jus post bellum—dealing with the morality of post-war settlement and reconstruction.
Just War theory postulates that war, while terrible, is not always the worst option. There may be responsibilities so important, atrocities that can be prevented or outcomes so undesirable they justify war.





















So please think again and genrichyour mind and outlook.

Wednesday 27 July 2016

Trump, Ukip Normandy and Bavaria..this says it all





       THE SECOND COMING
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


The Second Coming was written in 1919 in the aftermath
of the first World War. The above version of the poem is
as it was published in the edition of Michael Robartes and
the Dancer
 dated 1920 (there are numerous other
versions of the poem). The preface and notes in the book
contain some philosphy attributed to Robartes.
This printing of the poem has a page break between lines
17 and 18 making the stanza division unclear. Following
the two most similar drafts given in the Parkinson and
Brannen edited edition of the manuscripts, I have put a
stanza break there. (Interestingly, both of those drafts
have thirty centuries instead of twenty.) The earlier drafts
also have references to the French and Irish Revolutions
as well as to Germany and Russia.
Several of the lines in the version above differ from those
found in subsequent versions. In listing it as one of the
hundred most anthologized poems in the English
language, the text given by Harmon (1998) has changes
including: line 13 (": somewhere in sands of the desert"),
line 17 ("Reel" instead of "Wind"), and no break
between the second and third stanza.

  • Yeats, William Butler. Michael Robartes and the
    Dancer.
     Chruchtown, Dundrum, Ireland: The Chuala
    Press, 1920. (as found in the photo-lithography edition
    printed Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1970.)
  • Yeats, William Butler. "Michael Robartes and the
    Dancer" Manuscript Materials.
     Thomas Parkinson and
    Anne Brannen, eds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
    Press, 1994.
  • Harmon, William, ed. The Classic Hundred Poems.
    New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

  • After Normandy and religious history free me from saviours and the one true God

    I grow tired of the ignorance of those around me concerning the traditions of Islam and its rich culture and civilization. I grow weary of those who do not know that without Islam we would not have the numbers we count, I grow perplexed that they do not understand that even the algebra we use in Mathematics comes from that background...there might even be a clue from the “al algebra” term. There is a darkening of our outlook perhaps it has significantly worsened since June 23 I do not know. The contribution to Architecture, the saving sof the works of Aristotle, the translation movement that saved so much of Classical Philosophy all are forgotten in the hateful prejudices of the Sun, the Daily Express and the mindless prejudice spewed onto the Facebook group “Port Talbot-debate and argue by those who have never met anybody of a different culture or from a different country.

    Yesterday I saw some comments on Gareth Hanfords Facebook page and I wondered if those who saw Islam as a religion of violence had ever read this story from the Old Testament


    23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" 24When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursedthem in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-twolads of their number. 25He went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.…

    these are the actions that the Leviticus calls for the death penalty

    Laws of the Old Testament which demand the death penalty

    The Old Testament, includes a surprising number of crimes which merit the death penalty as punishment. These laws were believed to form an integral part of the overall "Covenant" between those who worship Yahweh.
    A couple of these demand that the "sinners" be burnt to death rather than stoned — which was the more usual form of capital punishment. One can wonder why these crimes in particular merit this especially horrible fate.
    • Adultery (Lev 20:10-12, (man and woman).
    • Lying about virginity. Applies to girls who are still in their fathers' homes, who lie about their virginity, and are presented to their husband as a virgin. The accused is guilty until proved innocent. (Deut 22:20-21).
    • Making love to a virgin pledged to be married to another. Applies to man who deflowers virgin pledged to be married, and to the virgin if she does not call for help. (Deut 22:23-24).
    • The daughter of a priest practicing prostitution (death by fire) (Lev 21:9).
    • Rape of someone who is engaged. If she is not engaged you only have to marry her and give her father 50 shekels. No mention is made of the girl’s opinion. (Deut 22:25).
    • Men practicing bestiality. (Both man and animal die). (Lev 20:15)
    • Women practicing bestiality (Both woman and animal die). (Lev 20:16)
    • Having sex with your father’s wife, as distinct from "your mother", as it was common practice for men at the time to have several wives. (both die). (Lev 20:20).
    • Having sex with your daughter in law. (Lev 20:30)
    • Incest. (Lev 20:17)
    • Male homosexuality. Women seem to get a free .. errrr ...ride on this one. (Lev 20:13).
    • Marrying a woman and her daughter. They are all burnt to death (Lev 20:14)
    • Worshipping idols (Ex 22:20, Lev 20:1-5, Deut 17:2-7).
    • Blasphemy (Lev 24:14-16,23).
    • Breaking the Sabbath (Ex 31:14, Numb 15:32-36).
    • Practising magic (Ex 22:18).
    • Being a medium or spiritualist. (stoning) (Lev 20:27).
    • Trying to convert people to another religion. (stoning) (Deut 13:1-11, 18:20).
    • Apostasy - If most people in a town come to believe in a different god. (Kill everybody, including animals, and burn the town.) (Deut 13:12-15)
    • Giving one of your descents to Molech. Probably refers to human sacrifice and is not now commonly practised in the west. (Lev 20:2)
    • Non-priests going near the tabernacle when it is being moved. (Numb 1:51)
    • Being a false prophet. (Deut 132:5, Deut 18:20, Zech 13:2-3)
    • Striking your parents (Ex 21:15).
    • Cursing your parents (Ex 21:17, Lev 20:9).
    • Being a stubborn and rebellious son. And being a profligate and a drunkard. (stoning) (Quite a few of us might have a problem with this one)(Deut 21:18-21)
    • Murder. However if a slave is beaten to death the owner is “punished” — not necessarily killed. If the slave survives the beating then there is no punishment. (Gen 9:6, Ex 21:12, Numb 35:16-21). This is part of a wide range of slavery laws in the Old and New Testament.
    • Kidnapping and selling a man. This is really a law against making an Israelite a slave against his will. (Ex 21:16).
    • Perjury (in certain cases) (Deut 19:15 - 21). Deut 19:20 explicitly identifies that the purpose of this is deterrence. "The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing (malicious and false testimony by one man against another) be done among you." Presumably all the other death penalties are assumed to be for deterrence as well.
    • Ignoring the verdict of a judge – (or a priest!) (Deut 17:8-13).
    • Not penning up a known dangerous bull, if the bull subsequently kills a man or a woman. (Ex 21:29) Both the animal and the reckless owner of the dangerous bull are to be put to death.
    • Living in a city that failed to surrender to the Israelites. (Kill all the men, make the women and children slaves.) Deut 20:12-14.
    • The following carry the punishment of being "cut off from his people". Some people seem to feel that this is the same as the death penalty.
    • A male who is not circumcised. Genesis 17:14
    • Eating leavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Exodus 12:15
    • Manufacturing anointing oil. Exodus 30:33
    • Engaging in ritual animal sacrifices other than at the temple. Leviticus 17:1-9
    • Sexual activity with a woman who is menstruating: Leviticus 20:18
    • Consuming blood: This would presumably include eating rare meat and black pudding. Also see above. Leviticus 17:10.
    • Eating peace offerings while ritually unclean: Leviticus 7:20
    • Waiting too long before consuming sacrifices: Leviticus 19:5-8
    • Going to the temple in an unclean state: Numbers 19:13
    I grow so tired of those who do not know their own traditions. Who do not understand that the roots of Christianity, Islam and Judaism all come from the same figure Abraham. That Abraham's first son was Ishmael who traditionally was the founder of the Arabic Peoples.

    My son was brought up to respect all spiritualities and philosophies that affirm the value of humanity. I cannot call myself an atheist as I consider philosophically that to believe or not to believe are both positions of faith. Morgan had a spiritual parents enabling him to make up his own mind. He has an Islamic Syrian as one influence and a a Pagan woman for another. He has read widely of all traditions at present he still does not know what he believes and neither do I . All I know is a perspective that comes from simply being humour and a wish simply to find a saviour who would help free me from saviours.But just to conclude I will end with Surah 109 from the Koran
    Say : O ye that reject Faith!
    1. I worship not that which ye worship,
    2. Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
    3. Nor will I worship those whom you have worshipped;,
    4. Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
    5. To you be your Way, and to me mine.


    Tuesday 26 July 2016

    Carl Jung and Historical Examples of Active Imagination: West and East



    Lecture I 28th April, 1939

    Last Semester we were concerned with a very difficult question, that of active imagination.

    I gave you some historical examples to enable you to gain some understanding of this process.

    This problem of active imagination is a question which is not exactly popular today, in a world where we hear of nothing but war and rumours of war, and where our very culture is threatened.

    Endeavour, however, to show you another aspect of the soul and to support introversion.

    In so doing, I am aware that I am dealing with a problem which is far removed from the present day "Weltanschauung".

    But it is a matter of indifference to me whether it is popular or not, so I shall follow this path undisturbed by the different pacts which are being made; they will only be broken in any case.

    Active imagination is the intentional activating of a function which otherwise remains passive.

    We are accustomed to look upon phantasy as something useless, for we in the West make no use of it, we do not know its value; or we regard it as pathological and a step towards the mental hospital.

    We do not stop to think that nothing would exist, there would be no culture in the world, if it were not for active imagination; it is always the forerunner, everything springs from it.

    It is a kind of game, it is true, but a creative game, a game of the gods.

    In India the gods dance the world into being, they play it into existence - and on a small scale men can practise the same activity.

    As Faust says: "Formation, transformation, The eternal play of the eternal mind."

    But every good thing is sometimes put to a bad use, and as phantasying is not a part of our western education, we have let it run wild and it usually brings up weeds.

    Nevertheless it also leads to new ideas and even to those technical discoveries which are so highly valued today.

    In the East active imagination still plays a considerable role, as it did with us in the Middle Ages: phantasy is trained and is considered to be an important appendage of religious and philosophical education.

    We have lost this side of culture and have no such process, but there was a time when it existed.

    In the last semester I read you two texts:

    the Amitavur-Dhyana-Sutra the title means introversion, meditation on Buddha Amitayus, undertaken in order to reach the land of Amitabha (or Amitayus) - and the Shri:-Chakra-Sambhara Tantra, which can be translated as the holy-wheel-collected-text.

    The wheel is a symbol, a mandala, in which the totality of man is expressed.

    The Amitavur-Dhviin a-Sutra is an older text than the Shri-Chakra – Sambhara Tantra.

    The Chinese translation of the Sanskrit original, which no longer exists, dates from the 5th century A.D.

    This Sutra teaches, in the form of a story, how to concentrate and how to develop the phantasy.

    The Yogin must start his meditation on a fixed point: in this case it is the image of the setting sun.

    The meditation or imagination of the water follows, then the ice and the lapis lazuli which is the firm ground.

    Under this the Yogin comes to the things which are not visible, the first of these to be meditated upon is the so-called dhvaja, the golden banner.

    The ordinary meaning of dhvaja is banner or standard, but it would be more correct here to translate it as symbol, for the text says that it is stretched to the eight points of the compass and is held there by golden ropes.

    This is all thought of as contained in a circle.

    The text continues with the meditation on the eight lakes, these are covered in lotus flowers which are round.

    The lotus (padma) has a double meaning, for it is identified with the yoni which means the feminine, especially in the sense of sex.

    I must remind you here that such things have rather a different character in the East.

    The Easterner does not suffer from our unnatural sexuality, he is absolutely normal in this respect.

    With the appearance of the lotus the round element is stressed.

    The eight lakes with innumerable lotus flowers have the meaning of worlds or groups of people, each lotus flower stands for an individual person and supports a potential Buddha figure, as the highest expression of perfect enlightenment.

    Later the single lotus is imagined on the firm ground of seven jewels, which is reality; so it is on the foundation of reality that the lotus is induced through imagination.

    It is very difficult for us to understand that a psychic reality can be brought into being through imagination, this is a thoroughly Eastern concept.

    The Easterner is not hampered by our prejudice that reality is only that which appears in space, in three dimensions.

    He thinks that his thought can take on concrete form, but this is not a necessity and when it does not it is equally a reality.

    We constantly hear of Mahatmas and Rishis living away in the mountains of Tibet who are capable of all kinds of magical practices and in India this is also taken for granted; but when Shri Rama Krishna became interested in the question and tried to discover if such people existed, he did not find a single one.

    Usually it is the invisible or psychic reality which is meant.

    Psychic reality is a thing which exists in and for itself in the East, it can be perceived and even induced to appear but it cannot be invented.

    The West sees such things very differently and assumes that anyone who perceives a psychic reality is suffering from an idee fixe.

    Mme David-Neel in the last chapter of her book "Mystiques et Magiciens du Thibet", tells us how she created a figure by meditation, through following the teaching of her Lama.

    It possessed her and it was months before she could free herself from it, she had created a psychic split and she was burdened with the split off part.

    We cannot doubt her sincerity.

    I know her personally, she is a very intelligent and clear minded French woman whom one would certainly not connect with phantastic experiences, but peculiar surroundings and great solitudes have
    a curious effect and strange things are produced there which could not happen in Piccadilly.

    In India I met a sportsman, a geologist, who was a member of the first Everest expedition, who told me with the greatest seriousness that he had been bewitched in a Tibetan monastery and that the mountains were full of devils.

    I made my own experience in Africa, so I can always take such things seriously, knowing that our consciousness remains European only so long as it is surrounded by European Culture.

    But under certain conditions we see what strange things can happen.

    When I was in Africa, an old Englishman asked me if I had come to study the natives.

    When I answered in the affirmative, he said: "Why study the primitives? They are not interesting, study the Europeans out here and then you will learn something."

    There is some truth in this, amazing things happen to them.

    We must not nurse the illusion that our psyche is not touched by strange influences.

    We could hardly have guessed that our Europe would have developed so charmingly - and the devils are not all on the other side of the mountain!

    When the Lama imagines something real, he has created something with his phantasy and it may possess him.

    It is wiser to study this phenomenon than simply to dismiss it.

    I do not say that I can actually see this second figure, but I can recognise the existence of such figures in people by their peculiar psychology.

    It is in this sense that the lotus of our text is a reality.

    Then the tower is imagined with its four posts.

    Here the quaternity comes in (it plays a still more significant role in the Shri-Chakra-Sambhara Tantra) and the process re aches its culmination with the highest being,

    Buddha, sitting on his flowered throne on the tower.

    When this realisation succeeds, the Yogin who is meditating is Buddha, the spirit which spreads over the whole world, the universal Buddha.

    This figure is identical with "mind" in English and "Bewusstsein" (consciousness) in German, Buddha-consciousness, whatever that is.

    This Buddha is a parallel to the medieval "inner Christ".

    In those days identity with Christ was attained through meditation.

    Stigmatisation is an expression of this medieval idea.

    The Shri-Chakra-Sambhara Tantra is exceedingly rich in material, it is impossible to give you a resume of it, so I shall only speak of the Tantrik sequence of symbols which forms its skeleton.

    It expresses the successive stages of the whole exercise and extends from avidya, not-knowing, the normal condition, to the highest enlightenment.

    The first condition is the Void; in the text it is called Shunyata, which means Void in the dogmatic Buddhist sense.

    This is not the Void, however, which is reached through the Buddha-mind, but avidya, the Void of the world in which people live who do not know that the world exists – and then it does not.

    The conception that the world only exists because we see it, that it is a phenomenon of human consciousness, is the very foundation of the eastern attitude.

    Schopenhauer's philosophy was deeply influenced by the gleams of eastern philosophy which reached Europe with the first collection of the Upanishads.

    We, in the West, are all in the deep darkness of avidya and badly in need of redemption.

    We need to achieve psychic understanding, not just to be, but to know what you are.

    This understanding begins with the "separatio", for the contents of the Void must be discriminated in order that we may know they exist, the Void, therefore, is divided into the four elements.

    This quartering is the very foundation of enlightenment, translated into modern terms it is the analysis of the four functions.

    This "separatio" is a system of orientation, like the cross threads in a telescope.

    The four elements are identical with the four points of the horizon end the four seasons, it is a perfect system of ordering.

    The circle can be divided into sixteen or more parts, but the quartering is the simplest, and is the archetypal concept of the human psyche.

    The next symbol is Mount Meru.

    This is the first sign of something which is heaping up , it has been produced through concentration.

    So the central point is emphasised as the mountain.

    The city is the next symbol, it is built on the mountain and expresses the human community.

    We come next to the four-headed Vajra.

    This is a symbol for accumulated energy which can be sent forth and used for creation.

    It has the qualities of lightning, or the thunderbolt, and of the diamond, hard, indestructible, eternal.

    So this psychic image, which has been induced through active imagination, becomes eternal, freed from the limitations of space and time and from all decay, a symbol of psychic reality.

    The next symbol in the sequence is the lotus out of which the moon emerges.

    The moon is the feminine principle and the sun which follows is the corresponding masculine principle, so we have a feminine and a masculine principle, a division into two.

    The yoni then emerges from the lotus, it is the symbol for the feminine organ, and in the following symbol the moon, the feminine principle, is with the lingam, the masculine.

    The lingam is usually translated by the phallus.

    There are whole series of phallic symbols in some Shiva sanctuaries, and in Shiva temples the lingam is placed in the holy of holies, where our high altar would stand.

    But whereas our altar is to be found high up, the cross up on it seeming to raise it still higher, in the eastern temple a deep shaft is sunk and the lingam, the phallic symbol, is placed several metres below the surface of the earth, resting on the yoni, the lotus.

    In the West, we associate the spiritual with something high above, but the East finds it in Muladhara, the lower part of the pelvis, that which supports the roots, the lowest foundation of life.

    We, on the contrary, would symbolise the holy of holies with the head.

    If we make a ground plan of a Christian Church, (Diagram A) which is in the shape of a cross, and resembles a man with outstretched arms, we see that we place the altar where the head would be. 

    The eastern Temple is based on the idea that Buddha or the lingam (they are often equivalent) is to be found in the darkest and deepest place.

    In diagram B, the gate of the Temple (1) goes through the gopuram or cow-house. You then enter the mandapam or pillared hall (2) which is still light.

    There are a few low windows by the door (3) into the Vimana (4) but the shaft (5) where the lingam is kept is further back in the darkest place of all.

    The crypts in our old Cathedrals and Churches are remnants of the mystery cults which contained something of the same idea.

    Many Indians assume that the interior of their Temples represents the interior of the body.

    In Samkhya philosophy the lingam means the subtle body, the fine breath body, which covers the old conception of the anima, the psyche, the half material body.

    Lingam also means an appendage, a sign, a sexual sign, the male genital on the ordinary masculine body.

    So the most important part of the body is an appendage and the lingam is a symbol for the psyche.

    I had an interesting experience with a Tantrik philosopher in Puri.

    In the course of our conversation he said that he would share his deepest secret with me, as I had been so understanding.

    Then he whispered: "The lingam is a masculine organ".

    That is India.

    I found it very difficult to orientate myself, it was bewildering, for it seemed to me that every child must know this.

    Yet for these people it is the greatest secret.

    To return to the sequence of symbols, the union between the masculine and the feminine is an extremely important moment.

    The Vihara (the monastery) is the next symbol.

    The last symbol for the community was the city, but the Vihara represents the spiritual community.

    In it we find the great magic circle, in the centre of which is Mahasukha (highest bliss), the Lord of the Mandala.

    We see that this sequence ends in the same way as the Amitayur-Dhyana-Sutra the Lama has become Mahasukha, Buddha himself.

    Through the union of the moon, which is mirroring knowledge, consciousness or the psyche, with the lingam, which is the breath body, the highest summit is reached: the reality of Buddha.

    The exercise is carried through to the point where the Lama goes entirely into the divine figure, a second figure of himself which he has imagined.

    It is just as if Mme David-Neel had become her shadow, or whatever it was she created, and then it would have been as if she had never existed, the other figure would have become the reality.

    This can happen in pathological cases and there are historical records of such a split in the personality.

    There is a case of a young woman which illustrates this somewhat unusual phenomenon: she was generally of a nervous, morose disposition, but her character would suddenly change altogether and she would become happy and agreeable in every way; at those times she would speak of expecting a baby but had no knowledge of this fact during the morose periods.

    Finally she went over entirely into this second, positive personality and her expectations proved to be true.

    I have seen such cases where a second personality brings about an absolute change in character.

    It is this phenomenon which is made conscious here through active imagination. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Pages 102-106


    I think I could turn and live with Animals

    I Think I Could Turn And Live With Animals...
    By Walt Whitman
    from Song of Myself

    I think I could turn and live with animals,
    they are so placid and self-contain'd,
    I stand and look at them long and long.

    They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
    They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
    They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
    Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
    Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
    Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

    So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
    They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.

    I wonder where they get those tokens,
    Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

    Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
    Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
    Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
    Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
    Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.

    A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
    Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
    Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
    Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.


    His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
    His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.

    I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
    Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
    Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
    American poet, essayist and journalist, May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892